Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Football: Coronavirus

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking (1) to provide financial assistance to Football League clubs that are unable to benefit from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and (2) to encourage Premier League clubs toassist such clubs.

Baroness Barran: Football clubs are often the bedrock of our local communities and it is vital they are protected. That is why the Government has provided an unprecedented financial support package for businesses, which many football clubs have benefitted from, including the furlough scheme and business rates relief.The government was pleased to see the welcome announcement of an agreement in principle between the Premier League and EFL for a financial support package for League One and Two clubs. It is clear the money exists within the game for it to support itself: we urge the Premier League and EFL to finalise both this deal and one that protects Championship clubs also.

Music: Coronavirus

Lord Jones of Cheltenham: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support live music venues to operate in a COVID-19 secure way; and what steps they are taking to share best practice for operating safely within the music industry.

Baroness Barran: The Performing Arts guidance was developed in collaboration with the live events sectors to help venues put on live events in a covid secure manner.The Secretary of State announced an unprecedented £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector which will benefit the music sector by providing support to venues and many other cultural organisations to stay open and continue operating. So far, over £500 million has been announced from the Culture Recovery Fund for over 2,000 cultural organisations across England, almost a fifth of which has, so far, gone to the music sector. This funding will provide targeted support to organisations including venues, festivals and theatres.As part of this, £3.36 million was shared between 136 grassroots music venues across England which had successfully applied for emergency support in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. These emergency grants of up to £80,000 enabled venues to cover ongoing running costs incurred during closure, such as rent and utilities but also allowed them the chance to adapt to become covid secure for socially distanced live audiences when permitted.In order to propagate best practice across the industry, the Entertainment and Events Working Group gathers key industry bodies to help produce detailed guidance and ensure that the latest updates to that guidance are shared with their sectors.

Music: Coronavirus

Lord Aberdare: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken(1) to support live music venues to operate in a COVID-19 secure manner, and (2) to propagate best practice in that industry.

Baroness Barran: The Performing Arts guidance was developed in collaboration with the live events sectors to help venues put on live events in a covid secure manner.The Secretary of State announced an unprecedented £1.57 billion support package for the cultural sector which will benefit the music sector by providing support to venues and many other cultural organisations to stay open and continue operating. So far, over £500 million has been announced from the Culture Recovery Fund for over 2,000 cultural organisations across England, almost a fifth of which has, so far, gone to the music sector. This funding will provide targeted support to organisations including venues, festivals and theatres.As part of this, £3.36 million was shared between 136 grassroots music venues across England which had successfully applied for emergency support in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. These emergency grants of up to £80,000 enabled venues to cover ongoing running costs incurred during closure, such as rent and utilities but also allowed them the chance to adapt to become covid secure for socially distanced live audiences when permitted.In order to propagate best practice across the industry, the Entertainment and Events Working Group gathers key industry bodies to help produce detailed guidance and ensure that the latest updates to that guidance are shared with their sectors.

Mobile Phones: Disadvantaged

Lord Watson of Invergowrie: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Power Their Potential scheme run by the mobile phone provider Optus in Australia, which allows customers to donate unused data each month to be distributed to those in digital poverty.

Baroness Barran: The government continually assesses varying approaches to promoting digital inclusion when addressing digital exclusion in the UK.To help support vulnerable consumers with their connectivity and data needs, in March 2020 the Government and Ofcom worked with the UK’s major broadband, landline and mobile providers, who cover most of the market, to develop a package of voluntary industry measures. As part of these commitments, communication providers agreed to give their customers new and generous offers on mobile and landline services. This includes some providers who gave effect to this commitment by giving free and low cost data boosts on mobile, and free calling allowances on landline packages. These were offers which were able to reach consumers quickly compared to data donation arrangements.Ofcom has also recently published a guide to Treating Vulnerable Consumers Fairly, setting out its expectations and good practice on how vulnerable telecoms consumers should be supported. This includes treating those in financial distress fairly, providing them with payment support options, such as payment holidays, and only disconnecting consumers as a last resort option.

Television Licences: Fees and Charges

Baroness Hoey: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce legislation to decriminalise non-payment of the TV licence fee.

Baroness Barran: The government believes that it is right to look again at whether the criminal sanction remains appropriate for TV licence fee evasion given ongoing concerns about whether the criminal sanction is unfair and disproportionate.In February 2020, we launched a public consultation on decriminalising TV licence evasion.The consultation closed in April after receiving over 150,000 responses. We will listen carefully to those that have responded before setting out our next steps.

Data Protection

Baroness Kidron: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of accepting transfers made under Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross-Border Privacy Rules on (1) the privacy rights of (a) UK citizens, (b) children, and (c) disadvantaged groups, and (2) the enforcement of data protection provisions under Section 123 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Baroness Barran: The UK does not intend for Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to provide a legal basis, as a matter of domestic law, for the cross border transfer of personal data.The recently agreed UK–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), for example, does not provide for the onward transfer of UK citizens’ data using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross Border Privacy Rules System (APEC CBPR). It also does not alter the UK’s existing protections as enshrined in the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR, including the age-appropriate design code provisions in the DPA.The UK is committed to working with international partners to remove unnecessary barriers to international data flows. This includes promoting interoperability between international data protection frameworks, which must ensure personal data is appropriately safeguarded.

Department for Education

Apprentices: Taxation

Lord Allen of Kensington: To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to ring-fence an allocation of the apprenticeship levy for the training of people aged between 16 to 24; and if they have such plans, (1) what percentage of the levy they intend to ring-fence, and (2) by when it will be ringfenced.

Baroness Berridge: We know that young people are likely to be disproportionately affected by the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. To help businesses offer new apprenticeships, we are providing a payment to employers (in England) of £2,000 if they hire a new apprentice under the age of 25, and £1,500 for apprentices aged 25 or over.The levy is an important part of our approach to raising apprenticeship quality and supporting employers to make a long-term, sustainable investment in training. The apprenticeship budget funds the cost of training for both levy-paying and non levy-paying employers, as well as apprenticeships that started prior to the reforms. In the 2020-21 financial year, funding available for investment in apprenticeships in England will remain around £2.5 billion, double what was spent in the 2010-11 financial year. It is for employers to choose the apprenticeships they want for their employees, and so funds are not allocated specifically to support training for apprentices of different ages.We are working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop a programme of work, to engage with Kickstart employers and to support them to move young people onto an apprenticeship in their organisation, where this is appropriate. We have recently amended our funding rules to ensure that employers taking on an apprentice who has previously been on the Kickstart scheme is eligible for the incentive payments.We are tripling the scale of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in the 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. We have introduced incentive payments of £1,000 per learner for employers who create new work placements available this academic year. Employers that offer traineeships nationally can claim the new payment for up to 10 learners in each region. For those who are not able to take up a job or work-based learning offer, we will fund up to another year of classroom-based study in high value skill areas to support young people’s progression into employment. We will fund extra places for specific high value courses at level 3 and level 2 that are aligned to priority areas for economic recovery.Careers information, advice and guidance is crucial to help people to achieve the skills and experience that they need and meet the demands of businesses and employers for a skilled and flexible workforce. That is why we are investing an additional £32 million in the National Careers Service up to March 2022. This investment will provide individual careers advice for 270,000 more people whose jobs or learning have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Apprentices

Lord Watson of Invergowrie: To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of apprenticeship starts in each month of 2020.

Baroness Berridge: The number of apprenticeship starts from January to July 2020, reported to date, are shown in the table below: MonthApprenticeship starts (reported to date)Jan-2032,200Feb-2025,800Mar-2022,000Apr-2010,600May-2010,100Jun-2013,000Jul-2017,900Notes(1) Data source is the Individualised Learner Record (ILR).(2) Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.(3) Learners starting more than one apprenticeship will appear more than once.(4) Apprenticeship starts include all funded and unfunded learners as reported on the ILR. Finalised figures covering January to July 2020 are due to be published in our next ‘Apprenticeships and traineeships’ statistics publication, later this month. The exact publication date will be announced on GOV.UK soon. The first available data for the 2020/21 academic year (covering August to October 2020) will not be published until January 2021.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Nagorno Karabakh: Cultural Heritage

The Lord Bishop of St Albans: To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the government of Azerbaijanabout (1) the rights of Armenians, and (2) the protection of cultural sites, including monasteries and churches, in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Baroness Sugg: The Minister for the European Neighbourhood and the Americas spoke to Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Bayramov on 13 November welcoming the news that the Governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan had reached a peace deal. She noted that a peaceful settlement was essential to securing the stability of the region and the rights of all civilians. The protection of cultural heritage affected by conflict and acts of destruction is a priority for this Government. We will continue to raise these issues with Azerbaijan and Armenia. We did so most recently in a 17 November meeting between the British Ambassador to Azerbaijan and representatives of the Presidential Administration.

Department for Transport

Roads: Closures

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Vere of Norbiton on 23 October (HL9101), whether the procedures local authorities should refer to in carrying out Equality Impact Assessment are publicly available; what assessment they have made of the timeframe in which Equality Impact Assessments should be carried out following an experimental road closure; and what steps (1) they, or (2) other affected parties, can take to ensure that such assessments are carried out.

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Vere of Norbiton on 23 October (HL9102), what assessment they have made ofthe consistency of a local authority’s decision not to monitor air quality data for road closures funded by the Emergency Active Travel Fund with the Local Air Quality Management framework.

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether details of the Local Air Quality Management framework are publicly available; if so, where; what steps they are taking to ensure that local authorities carry out their duties under this framework; and what steps citizens can take to ensure that local authorities are reviewing air quality.

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether local authorities are required (1) to consider, and (2) to consult on, traffic displacement in advance of road closures; and whether local authorities are required to monitorcongestion in streets adjacent to closed roads.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton: The Equality and Human Rights Commission have published the guidance document “Meeting the Equality Duty in Policy and Decision-Making” which is available to all public authorities. Their guide provides advice on how to assess the potential impact on people with protected characteristics of a public authority’s functions, including its policies, practices and decisions. The Local Air Quality Management Framework is set out in Part IV of the Environment Act 1995. It requires local authorities to review and assess air quality within their boundaries, and to produce an annual report detailing any monitoring results and any air pollution issues they have identified. Where an objective for a specific pollutant is exceeded the local authority must declare an Air Quality Management Area and produce an Air Quality Action Plan to address the exceedance. Annual reports must be made available to the public and will usually be accessible on the local authority’s website. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs provides support for local authorities to carry out their statutory duties under the framework via statutory guidance and a dedicated helpline. Local traffic authorities have a statutory duty, under the Traffic Management Act 2004, to manage their networks with the aim of ‘securing the expeditious movement of traffic’. They are responsible for using their knowledge of traffic conditions and the road network in their area to decide on appropriate traffic management policies that balance the needs of local residents, emergency services, local businesses, and those who work in and visit the area. The Department has recently published statutory network management duty guidance for local authorities which emphasises the importance of consultation on road closures and other schemes.

European Maritime Safety Agency: Unmanned Air Vehicles

Baroness Stern: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether their bid to the European Maritime Safety Agency for remotely piloted air system support during 2020 was successful; if so, (1) between which dates, (2) in which maritime areas, and (3) from which airports, were aircraft flown; and which type of aircraft was used to provide any such support.

Baroness Vere of Norbiton: No bid was submitted to the European Maritime Safety Agency for such systems by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in 2020.